GEOGRAPHIC VARIATION OF LACTATE DEHYDROGENASES OF RANA PIPIENS AND RANA PALUSTRIS

Electrophoretic, immunological, catalytic, and enzyme recombination studies were carried out on the HLDHs, and to a lesser extent on the MLDHs, of many populations of Rana pipiens and R. palustris. HLDH is far more variable from one population to the next than is MLDH, which appears to be identical in both species as far as can be determined by the methods employed. Of all the methods used, electrophoresis is capable of distinguishing the most differences between populations. However, two electrophoretically identical groups of enzymes can be differentiated immunologically. The geographic distribution of HLDH variability is generally concordant with the distributions of different mating calls, with the results of hybridization studies, and also with the old subspecies distributions. Eleven different forms of HLDH have been discovered so far in the R. pipiens complex. © 1969 Plenum Publishing Corporation.